Memories

Clear Creek Logjam
Casting about for something to paint this past week, I riffled through my boxes of photos. In the process, I remembered a photo I had taken of Clear Creek years ago. In the middle of the stream was an island with large sycamore against which was piled debris from the occasional floods. The scene, I thought, had potential. I never found the photo so I painted the scene from memory. This is a handy technique, I'm told, for avoiding extraneous detail, the bane of my painting.

Dappled Light

"So near and yet so far". This scene is barely thirty feet from a very busy country road. Always on the lookout for streams and ravines which promise the possibility of a painting, I parked on a narrow shoulder as soon as possible and hiked back into this washout. In the middle of summer, there's not much water. Little pools reflect the trees and what sky is visible. There is such peace here in contrast to the fleeting traffic above. I'm reminded of friends who have a meditation room in their house, reserved only for that purpose.